An Eclectic Journal of Opinion, History, Poetry and General Bloviating

Thursday, November 8, 2012

The Seeds of the WPA Planted

On November 8, 1933 President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt announced plans to create the new Civil Works Administration
which, he said, would provide up to 4 million jobs for the unemployed while
doing important work building roads, bridges, sewer lines, and other
infrastructure. In a 5 month run over the winter of 1933-34 over a
billion dollars was spent putting people to work.

The basic idea was improved and expanded upon as the Works
Progress Administration (WPA) funded by Congress in the Emergency
Relief Appropriation Act of 1935. The WPA was on its way to becoming
the single biggest program of the New Deal under the personal
supervision of FDR’s most trusted aid, Harry Hopkins.

Unlike the companion Civilian Conservation Corps,
which was designed for younger workers, many of them single, to get them out of
the cities where they might otherwise become idling malcontents and easy prey
to Reds and agitators, the WPA was aimed squarely at economic heads
of households to provide employment where they lived. This meant that
the overwhelming majority of enrollees were men. Where women were
enrolled, their husbands were typically absent, disabled, elderly, or had been
unable to find work in at least 5 years.

To counter concerns by the labor movement that
public employment would undercut union wages, pay was figured on an adjustable
scale dependent on whether the area was urban or rural, local cost of living,
and prevailing wages. To counter employer fears that workers would never
leave government jobs when private employment picked up, workers were limited
to 30 hours per week. In the work-starved Depression years, that
meant a WPA job meant a livable, but not generous support for families.

After some early stumbles, Blacks, Native Americans,
and other minorities were represented at or above their percentage of the
workforce. In the South, however,work gangs were
segregated, more advanced jobs limited or forbidden to Blacks, and wages
unequal.

The originally conceived public works projects changed
the face of America transforming both the urban environmentand
a road system that at the beginning of the Depression was still built for the
horse and wagon. By June of 1941 the WPA reported that over $4 billion
was spent on highway, road, and street projects; more than $1 billion on public
buildings; and more than $1 billion on publicly owned or operated utilities.

But the range of work undertaken was astonishing.
Women were employed in sewing projects that produced uniforms for the CCC and
military. There were programs to distribute surplus commodities and
provide school lunches. A popular program built libraries and provided library services, including bookmobiles to
underserved rural and urban areas.

One of the most controversial aspects of the WPA was
its programs to provide work for the white collar unemployed, as well as
laborers. WPA projects employed engineers, draftsmen, accountants and
bookkeepers, lawyers, and supervisors as needed. Teachers were employed
in pilot education projects and to train workers in job skills. Most
controversial were the programs to provide work for writers, visual and
dramatic artists.

The Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) employed
thousands of writers, including many of minority and working class origin, on a
wide range of projects, the most famous of which were The State
Guidebooks. These books were assembled for each state and territory
and included comprehensive reviews of the history, geography, economic
development, and ethnography of each state. The books were printed in
uniform editions by the states. Today they are considered invaluable
recourses for any researcher.

Likewise the Federal Art Project (FAP)
employed artists to produce more than 200,000 separate works including posters,
murals and paintings. The art, particularly the murals, installed in
public buildings, schools, libraries, train stations and elsewhere helped
transform public space. Many works are still considered classic
treasures. Others have been destroyed by demolition of the building they
were in or were mutilated by renovation and being painted over. Today WPA
art is being re-discovered, treasured, and restored in many places where it has
been found.

Artists and writers naturally comment on the world
around them. Although the majority of work by both projects was apolitical,
many efforts vocally supported the labor movement, exposed racial injustice,
and advocated for the rights of women. These voices were bitterly
denounced by conservatives who waged a relentless, but unsuccessful campaign to
defund these WPA agencies.

Conservatives also decried many of the public works
projects as “unnecessary make work” and accused WPA workers of “shovel leaning”
and other “laziness.”

Despite these criticisms by the time that the WPA was
ended in 1943 amid the essential full employment caused by World War II, it had
spent a staggering for the times $11 billion. It was the largest single
employer in the country. In the peak year of 1938, it employed 3.3
million people—nearly every person eligible under the program’s guide lines. It
has been called the most successful of all New Deal programs not only for
putting people back to work, but for the transformative legacy of its public
works projects.